How Mindfulness Helps You Work With Intention

Mindfulness is a practice of intentionally paying attention. In the last few months on the Idealist Career Advice blog, I’ve been writing about the benefits of mindfulness and how people like you can start using this practice to bring more intention to your work.

Knowing why you pay attention to certain things and overlook others can help you clarify what steps you need to take to make an impact in your life and on the world. Strategizing and planning for the future are not in themselves destructive; in fact, they can be necessary for most situations. But sometimes we get distracted by our tendency to strategize out of the present moment—this is where intention can come in.

Whether you’re writing an email, leaving your current job, or taking some time to yourself to avoid burnout, your actions are always guided by intention. Even unconscious intentions carry you through your day.

Maybe you are aware that you want to grow in your career but you are unconsciously motivated by a desire to be comfortable and avoid risk by not drawing attention to yourself, or not taking the time to schedule an informational interview you’ve been putting off. Though you consciously want new experiences at your job, you might be sabotaging yourself by remaining unaware of this underlying desire for safety and comfort. By uncovering what motivates you and applying purpose to your work, you can really start to understand how best to turn your values into action.

Bringing intention to your work while easing up on goals

First let’s define the differences between intentions and goals. A goal is by definition not something that happens in the present moment, but is rather a future event. We “meet” our goals because we take the steps to achieve them. There is nothing inherently wrong with having specific things that you’d like to see happen in the future! The trouble comes in when you allow judgment to take root.

What if I don’t make this goal? Am I a failure? Am I an underachiever? This is where the concept of working with intention can help. Intentions are something you can always come back to in the present moment, and can be used to correct those feelings of doubt and insecurity that creep up when we miss our goals.

Dismantling the success/failure binary

When you work with intentions, you don’t need an external circumstance to happen in order to be successful. In fact, intention can call into question the entire idea of failure. 

If, for instance, your intention is to work more slowly with an attention to detail, then you can fall back on this when you start to get frustrated with a project that is taking too long to complete. Instead of berating yourself for not working hard enough, consider how your intention to do things thoughtfully has made the project smarter, more efficient, and overall better. Once you can see beyond the rigid binary of success or failure, you can see the rich spectrum of alternatives that exist in between these two extremes.

Doing things for their own sake

Much of the time, we do things to achieve a specific outcome. You might not think about it this way, but go ahead and observe yourself for a few minutes as you go about your day. How much of your activity is designed for a specific outcome?

As mentioned above, loosening your grip on having such rigidly defined goals can help you approach your work and life with a sense of curiosity. When something comes up that you didn’t expect, is it possible just to see where it takes you?

Even sports and hobbies, which have their own goals and ways to succeed or fail, can be done for their own sake! I recently started taking guitar lessons, not to become the next Van Halen, but really just for the sake of challenging myself to engage with something for its own sake. Taking this attitude has made the process of learning chords much less frustrating, and almost a mindfulness practice. 

Mindfulness opens us up

Rigid goal-setting and future-fixation can blind you to the opportunities that are right under your nose, here in the present. If you feel fixated on a specific goal in the future, it could be limiting you.

Consider what happens when you feel like you know exactly what you want: a particular accolade, or a senior position at a specific company. Anything less than those outcomes may feel like a failure, and you could be forcing yourself to miss other great opportunities in the meantime.

By working with intentions as guiding principles rooted internally and in the present, you can feel a little less like a tree blowing around in the wind, and instead feel more purposeful no matter what you’re doing.

Embracing uncertainty at work

This one is not easy! We humans are very averse to uncertainty.

In the face of an uncertain future, plans and strategies often function as a shield that we use to fend off the impact of those disasters we’re afraid will befall us. Take a few moments to consider any sources of anxiety you might have right now: how much of that is in relationship to feelings of uncertainty about the future, anticipating things that haven’t happened yet that may or may not come to pass? It’s a tall order, and some people spend their entire lives working on it, but staying present in the face of uncertainty allows you to see that there are possibilities hiding in that chaos.

Uncertainty also often makes us feel like we need to jump at the first (job) opportunity that comes along, without weighing whether it’s a good fit for us, or whether it serves our intentions. With a foundation of purpose, you can stay grounded in your values and respond skillfully, rather than react out of habit.

These are just a few of the ways that mindfulness and acting with intention can help you bring a sense of purpose to whatever you do. Try it out yourself by articulating some clear intentions that might help open you up to your life and career.

When considering how you relate to career and your sense of work/life balance, just ask yourself what purpose your actions serve. This can help you uncover the motivations you’re already working with to see if they might help or hinder the intentions you hold.

About the Author | Caroline Contillo is a guest writer at Idealist.